Jack Ruby...

Jack Ruby was from organized crime, worked with and for organized crime, and died for organized crime.

Ruby emerged from Capone's Chicago

FBI documents released in 1979 show other instances in which key information was either altered before it reached the Warren Commission, or else withheld altogether. For example, judging from Warren Commission records, the FBI covered up Jack Ruby's connections to organized crime. The Commission did not receive an important interview with Luis Kutner, a Chicago lawyer who had just told the press (correctly) about Ruby's connections to Chicago mobsters Lennie Patrick and Dave Yaras. All the FBI transmitted was a meaningless follow-up interview in which Kutner merely said he had no additional information.

Apparently the FBI also failed to transmit a teletype revealing that Yaras, a national hit man for the Chicago syndicate who had grown up with Ruby, and who had been telephoned by one of Ruby's Teamster contacts on the eve of the assassination, was about to attend a "hoodlum meeting" of top East and West Coast syndicate representatives, including some from the "family" of the former Havana crime lord Santos Trafficante.

In 1937 Ruby became
involved with the scap iron and junk handlers union, local 20467,where he
worked for $22,50 a week, as an enforcer, and strong arm goon, although his
official title was union organiser.

The local was
organised by Ruby's friend and mentor, Leon Cooke, a Lawyer by training, whose
chief goal was to raise the wages for the membership to something more
reasonable than the Fifteen cents an hour they were making. But in the late
1930s labor plundering was the Chicago outfit's chief source of income, so when
Johnnie Martin, a two-bit hustler associated with the outfit's leading labor
plunderer, Murray Humpreys came to him for permission to take over the scrap
iron workers, Humpreys gave the OK.

Within days, Martin,
with the mob behind him, had moved in on the union and appointed himself
President. At the time, Martin was also on the City of Chicago payrole as a
sanitary district clerk and was under indictment with mob boss Paul Ricca for
trying to hide his taxable income from the Federal Government. Jack Ruby,
although hired by Cooke, soon fell under Martins command and was made the
syndicate's bagman inside the union. As for Cooke, no one is really sure what
happened, except there was a power struggle inside the Union, and Cooke ende up
shot to death.

From what the police
were able to reconstruct of the crime, Cooke barged into Martins office and
told him he wanted him out of the Union. After a few minutes, Martin drew a
revolver and shot Cooke three times in the back, and then took the only witness
to the shooting, the office secretary, as his hostage. Eventually Martin was
arrested and released, claiming self defence although he could not explain, nor
did the State Attorney ask why, if it was self defence, Cooke was shopt in the
back.

For the first few days
after the shooting, Jack Ruby was the primary suspect in the murder , and was
even picked up and questioned by the Police, but was released after a few
hours. Later, in an odd twist of fate, Bobby Kennedy reinvestigated Ruby's role
in Leon Cooke's killing for the McClellna committee, and concluded that Ruby
played no part in the killing. Although shortly after the murder Tubbo Gilbert,
Cook County's corrupt State's attorney chief investigator moved in on the
union, and confiscated all relevant paperwork, these, along with all police
records about the shooting, Kenndy noted disappeared for ever, and so Ruby's
real possition in the Union will in all probability, never be known..

American Mafia.

Ruby Phone Calls:

Associates of Ruby, such as Lawrence Meyers, Alexander Gruber, and Lewis J. McWillie;

Individuals called by Ruby in 1963, such as Barney Baker and Frank Goldstein;

Bruce and Karen Carlin (Mrs. Carlin worked for Jack Ruby under the stage name of Little Lynn);

Carlos Marcello, an important organized crime figure; David Ferrie, an individual linked with both Marcello and Lee Harvey Oswald;

Robert Maheu, Sam Giancana and John Roselli, individuals involved in CIA plots to assassinate Fidel Castro in the early 1960's; and "Dutz" Murret, the uncle of Lee Harvey Oswald.

This list is only partial, and in many instances the records obtained included phone calls for only a portion of the 1963 period. In some instances, the committee's requests for telephone records could not be accommodated. The committee also had access to and used fragmented telephone numbers and numbers whose subscribers were unknown.

Analysis of the calls

It was not possible to explain adequately all of Ruby's telephone contacts. Although explanations have been given, questions and speculation about his associates and contacts remain. For example, there was a 3-minute call to Clarence Rector of Sulphur Springs, Tex.,

on April 10, 1963. Rector told the FBI he had known Ruby since 1950, and that in 1960 Ruby had mentioned that he had been to Cuba in an attempt to obtain some gambling concessions with some associates.

Rector had also made a visit to Cuba in late 1959.(835) The FBI did not question Rector about the April telephone call, and the committee was unable to locate him.

Another unexplained call was to Elizabeth Anne Matthews of Shreveport, La., on October 3, 1963, at 11:03 p.m. It lasted 13 minutes. Matthews was the former wife of Russell D. Matthews, an acquaintance of Jack Ruby and an individual known to be connected with gambling and other criminal enterprises in Dallas. In his deposition to the committee, R.D. Matthews said he had no knowledge of this call or of any connection between Ruby and Matthews' ex-wife. Elizabeth Anne Matthews was not located by the committee, but she had told the FBI on December 1, 1962, that she had no recollection of any calls from Dallas on or about October 3, 1965.

Other ostensibly explained but still suspicious calls included number of possibilities. A brief account of these calls and individuals, in chronological order, follows.

LEWIS J. McWillie.--Between June and August 1963, Ruby placed seven long distance calls to McWillie, one of his closest friends. He spoke at length of this friendship during his Warren Commission testimony, stating at one point that he idolized McWillie.) In 1959, Ruby had visited him in Havana, Cuba, where McWillie was working in a syndicate-controlled casino. FBI records established that McWillie at least knew Santos Trafficante, the powerful Florida Mafia leader who played a role in the assassination conspiracies against Fidel Castro. McWillie denied anything more than passing acquaintance with him.

Ruby's phone calls to McWillie occurred on June 27, September 2 (two calls), September 4, September 19, September 20, and September 22. The first two were placed to McWillie's home number, the remainder to McWillie's place of business, the Thunderbird Casino in Las Vegas. McWillie stated that the purpose of these calls was Ruby's desire for assistance in solving his labor dispute with AGVA.

Irwin S. Weiner.--On October 26, 1963, Jack Ruby place long distance call to Weiner in Chicago; he spoke with him for 12 minutes. Though the Warren Commission had been aware of this telephone call, it had never sought to have Weiner questioned, nor did it explore his background and associations.

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been
bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle.
We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has
captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves,
that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you
almost never get it back.”